E

Glossary of terms for managing wholes

economics - The social science that chiefly studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Conventional economics ignores or takes for granted many factors that underpin working economies, such functioning environments on which they depend. Today environmental and social factors increasingly affect commercial output. Civilizations collapse when they destroy the natural resource base on which they depend, as has happened repeatedly through history. For commerce to remain economically viable in the long run, economics must incorporate the environment and properly value environmental health.

Economics ... encompasses all variables of the equation that influence an economy. Given the complexity with which nature functions and that in many nations these functions have been severely impacted by human activity, we need to understand that environmental considerations such as ecosystem function underpin our national economies.

ecosystem - Conventionally defined as a community of organisms and its environment functioning as one ecological unit. In reality, Earth functions as one globe-spanning ecosystem. Pollution, ozone depletion, and other environmental damage stubbornly refuse to stay within national boundaries. Conventionally defined ecosystems function as wholes within the larger whole of Earth's global ecosystem. To distinguish these concepts, some people refer to Earth's ecosystem, and to environments within it.

emergence - In complex systems, the arising of patterns, structures, or properties that don't seem adequately explained by referring only to the system's pre-existing components and their interactions. For example, ant and termite colonies engage in very complex behaviors that arise from the simpler interactions of individuals. Emergence becomes particularly important when

The organization of the system seems more obvious and of a different kind than the components alone

The components can be replaced without replacing the system (ants in a colony, cells in a body)

The system's patterns or properties are radically novel with respect to its pre-existing components; thus the emergent patterns seem unpredictable and impossible to deduce from the components, and cannot be reduced to the components alone.

energy flow - The process by which energy from sunlight fuels ecosystem functions and feeds virtually all life. Where energy flow is poor, most sunlight gets wasted striking bare ground or dead or dormant growth. As energy flow improves, more leaf area captures more sunlight over a longer season, growing far more food to feed the ecosystem.

exponential curve - A curve plotting change over time, in which the rate of change keeps increasing. This is typical of phenomenon in nature which are not self-regulating. Exponential growth can quickly get out of control, especially since the rate of change seems relatively low until the last part of the curve. Compare sigmoid curve.

exponential growth - Growth that follows an exponential curve. Species that don't regulate their own numbers typically increase exponentially until they reach or surpass the limits of their ecosystem.

Exponential growth poses a problem for managers because the situation seems "normal" until the brink of disaster. For instance, imagine a pond where the area covered by water plants doubles every month:

Five months before they cover the whole pond, they cover just 3% of the surface. Not a problem, right?

Four months before, they cover 6% -- still negligible.

Three months before, 88% of the water is still open.

Two months before, 75% of the surface is still clear.

One month before they completely cover the surface, the plants still only cover 50% of the water.

In the last month, they cover as much water as they did during their entire previous history.

Exponential growth explains how pest outbreaks can happen so quickly. Populations growing exponentially can quickly outstrip available resources. Because problems at the fast-growth end of the curve develop so quickly, noticing early-warning signals and getting people to respond to them in time to avert disaster can be a challenge.